@ZeroI've only played a couple hours of Minecraft in a multiplayer setting with a friend's kids. As far as I know, MC is randomly generated and much of the game is completely open-ended, albeit with some survival elements at night...? I appreciate the concept of an entirely destructible/constructible world, but the lack of goals wasn't for me.
DQB2 is far more focused though. IMO the Switch demo is too wordy and ends a little too soon because it's basically just the tutorial. Shortly after where the demo ends, you take off to the first main story island and help a town rebuild its farming community from basically a poisoned mess of nothing. The progression often goes like this: an NPC will give you some sort of quest ("build me a bathroom" "seek out this item in the wilderness" "go slay this creature"), you'll go do it, and the villager will reward you with their gratitude points (essentially the game's currency) as a reward, in addition to learning some new skills or recipes along the way. Your town will be a central base but you wander away from it to explore pretty frequently, and the world can be rather large (but there's fast-traveling).
What makes all this appealing is what the kiddos these days call the "gameplay loop," where it always feels like the game's multiple elements are complimenting each other. Building your base up makes you a better explorer, and exploring helps you build better things. Mix this in with some very endearing characters with a lot of personality and the DQ's skill in weaving a story that's simple but still has moments of sadness and despair, and I'm already feeling like this is one of the best action-RPGs I've played. It's an adventure first and a building game second; I'm not really into Minecraft, but I think the guidelines they give you for building stuff and the rewards for doing so give DQB2 the structure I need to enjoy a game like this. Eventually, even your townspeople will be doing the chores and building stuff for you! The focused and nonlinear parts really compliment each other well.